


One Simple Fact

by LyraNgalia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Blood Drinking, Gen, Post-Reichenbach, Post-The Reichenbach Fall, Reichenbach Theory, Vampire Irene, Vampire Sherlock, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:32:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The simple fact was Irene Adler died in Karachi, Pakistan, killed by Taliban terrorists under the employ of one Jim Moriarty. But what the British Government did not know was that Irene Adler, buried in a shallow grave in the desert, rose from said grave the next night, pale and bloodless, driven by a thirst for blood and revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Simple Fact

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Ladies of Sherlock October “Come As You Are” Challenge](http://ladiesofsherlock.tumblr.com/post/63087580559/the-ladies-of-sherlock-challenge-challenge-one), a bit of a flash fic/supernatural AU on how one encounter in Karachi could have changed the course of two individuals’ deaths.

The simple fact was Irene Adler died in Karachi, Pakistan, killed by Taliban terrorists under the employ of one Jim Moriarty.   
  
The simple fact was Sherlock Holmes died leaping off the roof of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, driven to it by the web of one Jim Moriarty.  
  
Those were facts known to one Mycroft Holmes, the British Government, and to one John Watson, former professional blogger. Facts proven and irrefutable. Facts that now coloured both men’s lives. Facts that left 221B Baker Street sealed and empty.  
  
There was, however, one simple fact that had slipped the sharp eyes of the British Government. One simple fact that had eluded him because of its simple impossibility: that Irene Adler, buried in a shallow grave in the desert, rose from said grave the next night, pale and bloodless, driven by a thirst for blood and revenge.  
  
And a corollary to that impossible fact, that the late Irene Adler had, before Sherlock Holmes’ suicide, paid the consulting detective a visit.  
  
A visit that now saw the late Consulting Detective walking the streets of anonymous city after city, night after night hunting down the Spider’s web while the Woman, now his companion and sire, danced through that same night, sending the men and women who fancied themselves wolves out to slaughter.  
  
*****  
  
There was an animalistic Hunger that now hummed in Irene’s veins, a craving for life, for blood, that in some ways reminded her of the craving for stimulation, the need to keep boredom at bay, but which was in other ways far less predictable, far less _civilized_ than the need to stave off boredom. Still, she took to the necessity of bending the new desire to her will, like all other desires she’d encountered before. She fed the Hunger regularly, treating it as another physical need, like the food she no longer needed, the sleep that was no longer necessary despite the need to hide from direct sunlight. If she was more vicious in her toying with those who would have been clients, those who now were prey, perhaps that was only understandable.

It was, perhaps, no surprise that in the months between her death in Karachi and the night she stood by and listened to Sherlock Holmes rise from the dead within his morgue locker, she’d gotten quite adept at understanding how the particular condition of vampirism _worked_.

Which was why she was deeply, _deeply_ irritated by the scene she saw when she slipped out of the Italian villa where a lithe, dark hair woman now slept and dreamed, a pair of almost imperceptible puncture wounds on her upper thigh. The scene that greeted her, the marks on the ground that spoke of a scuffle, the telltale dribble of blood. A scene that had been repeated over and over, from Venice to Stockholm to Rome. A scene that she had had to clean up for weeks, as more of Moriarty’s web fell victim to Sherlock Holmes’ thirst. He called it his thirst to return home, to reclaim his life and his identity in Baker Street, to ensure nothing left of Moriarty’s web could harm those he called his friends.

Irene called it his thirst for blood, a thirst that left those formerly of Jim Moriarty’s network dead and drained. She followed the footprints on the ground until she wove her way into a courtyard, where the figure of a man laid face down against the edge of a fountain, his head bashed in. He looked, for all intents and purposes, like he had stumbled, drunk, and unfortunately smashed his head against the fountain’s edge. The dark dribble of cooling blood spreading from his head spoke to that fact, but Irene ignored it, reminding herself that she was newly satiated, that the wasted blood would not awaken Hunger in her. It helped, to cloak herself in the dominatrix’s armour of her former life, to draw on her irritation and her anger as she turned, and with preternatural speed, grabbed Sherlock Holmes and slammed him into the stone wall opposite the fountain.

“You remembered to leave enough blood this time for a believable accident,” she growled, drawing on her irritation to mask the sudden echo of Hunger as she smelled the blood clinging to him.

He was as cold and immovable as the stone wall she had him pinned against, the only thing differentiating him from said wall was the fact he arched his eyebrows, a single precise motion. “Would you rather I’d left him drained dry?” he answered, though he did not move, did not struggle out of her grip, out of the iron vise that was her small hand against his chest. If he still needed to breathe, he would have no doubt found it hard to draw said breath.

“He was supposed to be a shooting victim,” she reminded him, her eyes almost gleaming silver in the pale moonlight. “Or did you forget?”

“I never _forget_ ,” he snapped back, the vehemence of his answer causing the tiniest droplet of blood that had been clinging to the corner of his mouth to pool, to slip down his skin. Her grip on him tightened, her eye and her Hunger drawn to the droplet. “It would have been a waste of blood.”

She leaned in close, cold and implacable as winter’s wrath, her body cool despite the warm Italian night. Her grip shifted, from the simple touch of her hand against his sternum to her entire forearm against his clavicle. She forced herself to ignore the droplet of blood, forced herself to focus on _his_ weakness rather than her own.

“And this makes four of Jim Moriarty’s network to die of bashed in heads, of animal attacks,” she told him, her voice pitched low and precise, her wrath terrible in its quiet intensity. “Do you really think they won’t notice, Mr. Holmes? Do you think you’ll be able to finish this if they realize what is happening? Do you think you can go back to _them_ in all their warmth and humanity and not think of the blood in their veins if you can’t even control yourself around trash like _this_?”

She saw her words hit home, saw the animal Hunger fade from his eyes, saw the realization on his face, and in that moment she let him go, let him drop to the ground. The secrets of blood and death tied them together now, tied them even more closely than they had been before, made them even more alone, made it more obvious that they were the only two left in the world like themselves. But Irene Adler refused to allow weakness, to allow her hunger for blood to bring her low again.

She was Irene Adler, The Woman. Death had only given her more titles. Vampire. Sire. And she would embrace them. And not let a petulant childe ruin the gift she’d been given, even if he was Sherlock Holmes.


End file.
